Mt. Fuji at 300km/h

I didn’t think a mountain could bring a tear to my eye. And perhaps I was getting a little delusional after being awake for 30 hours, but when I saw Mt. Fuji for the first time it, it brought out an emotion I wasn’t expecting, relief we were finally here? Excitement about what’s to come? Awe in the beauty of it? All these combined. We had been on a Shinkansen in the green carriage enjoying comfortable seats and silence after 3 consecutive flights to get to Tokyo, now on a 4 hour Shinkansen to Hiroshima.

We had purposefully chosen the right-hand seats in hope we would be able to see the mountain. We had managed to catch a glimpse of the mountain when flying into Tokyo and I was feeling content with that.

So when we saw the massive free-standing mountain against a blue sky it was genuinely awe inspiring.

Mt Fuji as seen from the Shinkansen (Canon F-1 | Portra 400)

Taking a photo on a Shinkansen travelling nearly 300kmph was tricky. I’d line up the photo but by the time you snap the picture powerlines might have appeared in frame, a building or as I found out later on the journey, you’d enter a tunnel as you went to take the photo.

I did manage to get this photo of Mount Fuji. I think my Canon F-1 and Portra400 film captured how I felt perfectly.

A stunning mountain and what marked the start of our time in Japan.